Competency tests ordered for mom in child lock-out

YOUNGSTOWN -- A municipal court judge ordered a competency examination for a 28-year-old West Side woman facing child-endangering charges. Lakeisha Ross, of Steel Street, was taken to Mahoning County jail Tuesday after Judge Robert P. Milich set $6,000 bail on the three misdemeanor child-endangering counts and misdemeanor charges of obstructing official business and criminal trespass, according to Youngstown police. Investigators said neighbors found Ross' 5-year-old daughter locked out of the house and crying on the front porch at about 10 p.m. July 16. Neighbors told police the girl's mother routinely locks her out of the house from early morning until after dark. Neighbors said that they feed the child and that she routinely urinates and defecates in neighborhood yards. When police and Children Services went to Ross' home to inform her that they had taken the child into custody and were also going to place her infant son in foster care, Ross grabbed the baby and fled out a back door. Police found Ross hiding with the baby in an upstairs room of a Butler Avenue home that she had entered without the owner's permission.